Donna Littlejohn

Recent articles

Shootings

A 36-year-old man from Playa del Rey was arrested late Thursday after allegedly firing shots while driving his car on Western Avenue in San Pedro.Early reports that he shot at police officers were false, said Los Angeles Police Officer Drake Madison. The suspect suffered minor injuries when his SUV crashed into a fence at a mobile home park in the 2200 block of East 25th Street near Western, police said. No other injuries were reported.

Pets

It all began when Mike Minnick spotted a discarded black-and-white puppy in a Texas animal shelter and decided they belonged together.He was a bartender and a chain smoker. He drove a pickup truck, and hadn’t ridden a bicycle since high school.“I was long overdue for an adventure,” Minnick, 39, of Austin, Texas, said Tuesday as he savored the ocean views at Hermosa Beach. “I felt like I needed to shake my life up.”And shake it up he...

Navy

Tickets are going fast to get a free tour of one of three active-duty Navy ships visiting the Port of Los Angeles for Navy Days next week.Advance reservations are required to get on board the USS Bunker Hill (CG-52), USS Cape St. George (CG-71) or the USS Halsey (DDG-97) that will be open for visits Aug. 7-9. About half of the 9,000 available tickets were spoken for by mid-day Monday and...

Reckless endangerment

A man trying to elude police officers chasing him south from Wilmington crashed through a gate in San Pedro and drove his Toyota Prius off a cliifftop, police said Tuesday.The man survived, but did not get away.The pursuit, which reached speeds of 80 mph in downtown San Pedro, occurred after the man aimed his vehicle at Los Angeles Port police officers in Wilmington about 11 p.m. Monday, Port of Los Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield said.The officers were working with...

Cultural history museums

The phone at Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in Wilmington started ringing early Friday morning.Media outlets wanted reaction from curator/director Susan Ogle to a letter sent out by U.S. Rep. Janice Hahn urging that any Confederate battle flags be removed from the museum’s gift shop shelves.Two problems: The letter was never sent to Ogle. And she’d already voluntarily removed the flags days earlier.“I’ve already had calls from (two...

Cultural history museums

It’s been 150 years since the Civil War ended, but echoes of the War Between the States still reverberate.Take the recent national dust-up over the Confederate battle flag.In the days following the fatal shootings of nine black people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., bipartisan calls went out to remove the symbol — featured prominently in the confessed killer’s racist social media posts — from the grounds of the state Capitol.In...

Historical reenactment

They’ll roll in on Friday with horses, tanks and rifles in tow, ready to transport a swath of Angels Gate Park in San Pedro into a field of history’s warring armies.Actors will be outfitted in authentic period costume, wearing body armor, buckskin and camouflage, to portray the world’s armies in a living history event that has steadily grown since it began nearly 30 years ago.It’s designed to both entertain and educate.

Ballet

Misty Copeland, a shy San Pedro 13-year-old in overalls when her talent was discovered, was named principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre on Tuesday — the first African-American ballerina to achieve that status in the company’s 75-year history.Copeland, 32, held back tears at a hastily arranged news conference in New York as she spoke about her promotion, which she said was a lifetime dream, but such a difficult one to attain that she never really thought it...

Thunderstorms

It felt more like Kansas than California when a flurry of wind gusted, thunder clapped and lightning bolts flashed through the darkened skies over Los Angeles County beaches Tuesday.It didn’t last long. But it got everyone’s attention.Los Angeles County and City lifeguards quickly closed the beaches from the Harbor Area to Zuma when the monsoon-like conditions blew in from the ocean after 4 p.m.“The thunder was loud,” said Daniella Caccavalla,...

Museums

It’s a storied history that most people have never heard.America’s Merchant Marine cargo ships took some of the biggest hits in the early days of World War II, blown apart by German U-boats that lurked across the Atlantic. The Merchant Marine had the highest casualty loss rate of all the services during the war.But as the war persisted, the civilian ships managed to deliver more than 380 million tons of supplies, earning praise from President Franklin D.